Throughout my formal and informal aviation maintenance training, I have learned to respect gasoline. It can be a lot of fun when properly applied to a pile of furniture, or through a fuel injector into an engine. It can be absolutely deadly if not respected. Special care is always given when handling fuels to avoid fire hazards and explosions.
Recently I had reason to believe that my fuel tank in our truck had become contaminated with water. I took the truck to a shop to have them lower the fuel tank, clean it, and reinstall it. It was a Midas-type place that had good equipment and was recommended to me by a Filipino friend as a good place to have the work done. He was right, it was a great shop, they just followed some different safety standards than I was used to.
The mechanic started working and I was comfortable with how the work on the truck was going so rather than “supervise” I went off and ate breakfast and took care of some errands. I returned after lunch to see that the job was nearly complete, they needed only to bleed the fuel filter, and refill the tank.
As I walked around to the front of the truck I was shocked at what I saw. The mechanic was under the hood working and…smoking! He was, with his left hand, operating the primer pump on the still-soaked-in-diesel-fuel filter, and with his right hand only inches away, he steadied himself and held a smoldering cigarette.
He was soaked in diesel to his elbows from when he drained my fuel tank earlier in the day and didn’t seem to be bothered by the possibility that the entire vehicle could go up in flames if his cigarette ashed! I was grateful when he finished under the hood and hadn’t exploded. I was also relieved to see his cigarette was nearly consumed and would soon find its way to an ash tray.
We walked to the rear of the car where the refueling operation was taking place with a small homemade plastic funnel and some old oil jugs. Of course, there was a sizable puddle of diesel fuel on the ground where all the guys were standing. My smoking mechanic friend decided to get rid of his cigarette. As he approached the other guys who were standing in fuel, he threw his cigarette down to the ground, missing the puddle by about two inches, and stepped on it with his diesel soaked foot.
Thankfully diesel is much harder to ignite than gasoline so there was no accident. My heart rate came down sometime after lunch the next day and my truck seems to be doing great with its freshly cleaned tank. The work that was done was good, I just should have taken a longer lunch and avoided seeing the scary disregard for safety in the workplace.
Brian and Bailey Pruett says
Yeah, it’s true. I’ve heard about some quack-jobs putting their cigarettes out in buckets of fuel 🙂 Liquid fuel won’t burn, but the fumes are quite explosive. Diesel is generally a really safe fuel so I wasn’t too concerned. Had it been gasoline, I have no question the shop would have gone up in flames along with the mechanic! It was really hot in there and the shop would have filled with fumes. I just hope he uses a different set of safety standards when he works on gassers.
Philip Le Roux says
Did you know…. when dropping a cigarette in diesel or gasoline, the fluid will put the cigarette out… We tested it in the cops and it does. Another exercise for mythbusters… The movies are wrong after all.